La Coupole, Sofitel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 1-3 July 2013

Sofitel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 1-3 July 2013

Sofitel Phnom Penh claims to be a 5-star hotel, but in reality, it is more like a 4-star hotel.

I stayed in a junior suite for 2 days.The shape of the room is a little odd—it is like a “L” with the little bit jutting out forming the study.There is already a bureau and a chaise lounge in the main room with another bureau and chaise lounge in the study.I guess the bureau and chaise lounge in the study only come in useful if there are 2 occupants in the room.The bad thing about the bureau in the study is that you can’t watch TV while you do your work at the bureau.

The sleeping area/ main room is connected to a walk-in closet/ wash basin area.There are 2 wash basins which is good.

The bathroom is tiled instead of marble.It felt like it could have been classier. The tiles don’t really whisper “5-star”.The entire suite has hard wood flooring.I’m not sure how I feel about that, whether hard wood flooring or carpet would be classier.

Some nice touches about the junior suite—

There is an ipod dock.

Illy expresso machine in the suite

Many, many towels—-good!

Lanvin toiletries—-very French.Classy.

The bed is extremely comfortable.Sofitel has invested into creating their own bed “Mybed” and it pays off.The MyBed™ mattress comes with a slatted base and offers targeted support by gently absorbing your movement throughout the night.Exclusive to Sofitel, Mybed is made with a higher concentration of springs placed at common points of pressure, like shoulders, neck, and back. On top of the mattress is the plush cloud-like MyBed™ featherbed (duvet).The result: a firm but very soft experience.You can feel the softness but you can’t feel where the softness ends and the firmness begins.Sofitel might have an edge over other leading hotels in this department.To be frank, the experience is quite, quite enticing, almost enough to make me pick Sofitel over other 5-star brands on my next trip.This bed is worth a try.

When you arrive at the hotel and your luggage is handled by the porters, they actually cut away the ugly airline check-in luggage tag for you.LITTLE TOUCHES GO A LONG WAY.

The breakfast selection is quite small, especially the hot food section. There are flies at the beef pastrami.The lunch buffet does not look very promising either.There are a lot of carb dishes —-pasta, Asian noodles, cold salads but just a couple of hot protein dishes.

The hotel management seems to be a little wonky—there are 2 gyms and 2 swimming pools.On top of that, there are many, many restaurants but they all don’t seem to gather much business.This is quite a worrying sign—if the restaurants aren’t making money, how much of the room rate goes into keeping these restaurants (and the extra gym and pool) alive?How much of the room rate actually goes into creating value for the customer?

There are 68 channels on the TV.However, more than a handful of them are in Khmer.Are there really that many Khmer (Cambodian) guests in the hotel?A quick scan around the hotel would tell you no.As such, having that many Khmer channels doesn’t really make sense and doesn’t really add value to the guest. I wish the hotel would also have MTV, Asian Food Channel (AFC) and Discovery Living, all currently missing.

The hotel has tuk-tuks on hand to take you around the city.However, the prices are higher than if you hail a tuk-tuk outside the hotel(the hotel ground is quite large.You have to walk a little to get to the gate).For example, from the hotel to Sisowath Quay, the fare with the hotel’s tuk-tuk is US$3.30 instead of the usual US$2.From the hotel to the airport, the fare is US$8.80 instead of the usual US$6.

Ordinarily, Sofitel Phnom Penh would have been a 4-star hotel.Due to the lack of competition in Phnom Penh, it reigns as one of the 5-star greats.